Naruto: Wait, what?
by Splendid Skye XIII
Summary: My plot bunny hatch for Naruto. Mostly crack with the occasional serious!fic tossed in here and there, ask if you find something you want to adopt! T because I'm paranoid.
1. Real Copy-nins

**A/N: So this will be my irregularly updated, random, half crack pile of random ideas that pop into my head and I think are good enough to keep. And probably some not worth keeping, but who cares? :D Actually, this will be very much like my other idea dump: HTTYD: What Ifs? (Shameless self-advertising for the win! ;P)**

"Team 7 will be Sakura Haruno, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto." Iruka looked up from his clipboard, bracing himself for fangirlish screams from Sakura and both joyous and indignant shouts from Naruto, but was met with near silence. Looking closer, he gaped slightly.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto were sitting together by a window: Sasuke against the wall, Sakura beside him, and Naruto behind him. All three of them were in identical brooding poses, wearing the exact same blue high-collared shirts displaying the Uchiha crest on the back, tan shorts, and duck-butt (**A/N: Had to be done. :P)** hairstyles.

And as one, they lifted their heads, looked at him, and let out identical "Hn"s. Iruka, now thoroughly freaked out, continued. "Your jounin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi." They returned to their brooding with another "Hn." Iruka rushed through the rest of the teams and hurried off to try to find someone who could explain what was going on.

-Line Break of Coolness-

Kakashi arrived his customary three hours late, and wandered lazily in to find three copies of him with different hair colours. In perfect synchronization, they casually lifted their hands and gave a lazy sounding "Yo." And eye smiles. Kakashi stared at them a moment, then let out a subtle chakra pulse to check for genjutsu. When nothing happened, he gave an eye smile of his own.

"My first impression of you is…I don't look good with pink hair. The three mini-hims blinked, then eye smiled again.

"And I don't look good with grey hair." There was silence for a moment, then they looked up at him, put their hands on their chins, and looked at him appraisingly, and spoke in synch.

"My first impression of you is…I hate you." Kakashi's visible eye widened and he shivered a little at hearing three people refer to themselves as 'I'. They continued. "Meet me upstairs in five minutes." And then before he could retort, all three disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving a dumbfounded Kakashi behind.

-Line Break of Awesomeness-

Saratobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, sighed as he viewed the three gennin in front of him dressed in identical orange jumpsuits and with spikey hair.

"What on earth possessed you to put the roof of the Hokage tower inside a secret ANBU training facility? And for that matter, how did you do it?" The three in front of him gave sheepish looks and rubbed the backs of their heads as they gave a nervous chuckle at the same time.

"Well, it's your tower, right?" Saratobi shuddered imperceptibly as all of Team 7 spoke at the exact same time. "And even if the masked guys suck at catching people, they're like, super strong, right? So if you went to get your roof back, and we were there, you and them could teach us some awesome jutsu and stuff, right?" Saratobi slapped his forehead with his pale, help it there for a second, then pulled it down his face to stroke his chin as he eyes the suddenly apprehensive ANBU speculatively.

"No, I can't teach any of you anything." The three in front of him seemed to deflate in disappointment. "But you may have a point about the quality of the ANBU…" He shuddered again as the three perked up again with identical looks of anticipation. Shaking it off, he scribbled something down on a small scroll as he continued.

"Yes, as punishment for letting three gennin get the better of them…and me, they will teach the three of you, hmm, let's say…six C-rank jutsu of your choosing." He was promptly dogpiled by three overly hyper, super exited orange wearing ninja at the same time.

"Yes! Thanks jiji! We'll master them in no time and be back for more, or the hat!" They then jumped off him and out the window side by side in perfect synchronization, racing off towards the ANBU training grounds with simultaneous shouts of: "New jutsu! Finally, dattebayo!"

**A/N: So yeah, tell me what you think! It helps keep my ego fed, and want to post new chapters. (hint hint)**


	2. Real Copy-nins, Part 2

** A/N: Well, this actually went faster than expected, so here's a new update just for you! After writing the first 'Real Copy-nins', I had more ideas, so here they are!**

** Oh yeah, and I don't own Naruto. Kinda forgot to say that first time around, hehehe. *Awkwardly rubs back of head* Anyway, here's the chapter! (For real this time...)**

Saratobi Hiruzen, the "God of Shinobi", wanted very much to bang his head on his desk. Currently sitting in front of him were three gennin, all dressed in identical red chinese dress, their hair in ponytails, and all giggling about how awesome and cute "Sasuke-kun!" was. He glared up at Kakashi, who had his nose buried deeply in his porn, doing his best to ignore the entire world.

"Kakashi," he began. "Just what have you been teaching your team?" Kakashi jerked when his name was spoken, then turned to Saratobi with a defeated look.

"Teamwork...at first. Then I switched to chakra control so I wouldn't have to watch them." The Hokage groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"That's understandable." There was a short period of near silence, only broken by the sounds of the village in the background and the quiet whispers and giggles from Team 7. Suddenly, Saratobi jumped to his feet and began digging through a pile of scrolls.

"Ha! This will do!" He triumphantly held a scroll up above his head, a stray beam of light catching the metal cap on the end making it sparkle (much like the teeth of the most Youthful shinobi of Konoha). Kakashi looked back up from his Icha-Icha in interest.

"What is it?" Saratobi grinned.

"A solution!" Kakashi perked up further and put his book away.

"A solution? What is it? A mind-control jutsu? A seal to send us back in time to prevent this from happening? A spell that will send those demon-spawn back to whatever hell they crawled out from for the sole purpose of tormenting us?" Saratobi leaned back from the over-eager jounin and the strange flame in his eye.

"No, but almost as good! A C-rank mission to Wave!" He elaborated at Kakashi's suddenly blank face. "With this, I can send them out of Konoha both legally and safely!" A look of horror began forming on Kakashi's face.

"You mean..." Saratobi nodded fiercely.

"That's right! A minimum of three weeks where I won't have to see or deal with them!" Kakashi's face now had full-blown horror and betrayal written across it.

"But what about me?" Saratobi shrugged.

"Sacrifices must be made in war." He ignored Kakashi, who was now huddling in a corner with a cloud of gloom over his head, and signaled for the client to be let in. The door opened, a an alcohol-soaked pile of rags. Actually, as Saratobi looked closer, it was a drunk wearing rags.

"Sho, yer ta ninjer tat's gonna pertectin' me?" He snorted. "None of 'em look deshent..." He squinted at Team 7. "Wait, are tey all da shame person?" The three dress-wearing gennin in front of him all looked up at him at once.

"We're Sakura Haruno, and the worthless pervert in the corner is our teacher; Hatake Kakashi." Both the afore-mentioned pervert and the Hokage shuddered, then gaped at Tazuna striking up a conversation with a Team 7 that looked like they'd much rather be somewhere else.

"Hah, seein' triple now, Konoha shure has shome good sake!"

-Line Break of Altair-

"Get down!" Kakashi ducked under the giant blade that proceeded to embed itself in a tree. A second later, a man familiar to Kakashi from the Bingo book appeared on the handle.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? The great 'Sharingan Kakashi' himself. This ought to be a fight to remember." Kakashi put his book away and shifted into a more ready stance.

"Zabuza Momochi, demon of the mist. A-rank missing-nin and one of the Seven Swordsmen. What are you doing here?" He glanced at his team out of the corner of his eye. All three were...gone?

"Hidden Mist" Three voices rang out from three different directions. A thick mist spread out from the trees, quickly blocking Kakashi's view. Zabuza's voice chuckled from the mist.

"I don't know who you are, but thanks for that!" The level of killing intent in the area began climbing steadily. "So, throat, spine, heart, liver," He was cut off by three voices drifting from somewhere in the mist.

"Kidneys, brain, so many lethal points, where should we strike?" Kakashi facepalmed as the sounds of blades striking each other began sounding out from various points all around him. Of course his team had decided to be Zabuza today. He sighed, pulled out his Icha-Icha, and wandered slowly over to where Tazuna was standing, shaking from the killing intent flooding the area.

"Wha-, what's goin' on?" Kakashi continued reading as he lazily answered.

"Well, that A-rank missing-nin that shouldn't be here for a C-rank mission is busy fighting three mini-hims." Tazuna's face went from pale to pale and nervous to confused and only slightly pale.

"Um, I can explain why I requerted, I mean rescued, I mean ashked for a C-rank, but whaddaya mean, mini-hims?" Kakashi ducked under a water dragon that destroyed several trees.

"Well you see, I'm known as 'Sharingan' or 'Copy-nin' Kakashi for having copied over a thousand jutsu with my implanted eye, and the three out there..." He pulled Tazuna to the side as a blond version of Zabuza flew backwards into a tree, his cleaver clattering to the ground beside him He lay there a moment, then jumped back up, grabbed his sword, and vanished back into the mist.

"And the three out there," Kakashi continued, "are my students, taking things to a whole new level. The sounds of clashing blades suddenly stopped, causing Kakashi to look away from Tazuna.

"Well, that's my signal." He flipped through the handseals for a wind jutsu that blew the mist away, ignoring Tazuna's question of "Why didn't you do that before?", to reveal a large figure on the ground, surrounded by three smaller versions of it about to slice it's head off. Before they could, several senbon needles imbedded themselves in their necks and they collapsed.

"I must thank you for weakening him." A figure dressed as a Kirigakure hunter-nin appeared on a nearby tree. "I've been..." the nin trailed off as they realized that Kakashi was paying more attention to his book then to them. "Ahem!" Kakashi just giggled and turned the page.

"Excuse me," the hunter-nin tried again. And again Kakashi ignored it and giggled perversely to himself. A visible tic appeared on the figures face, and they threw several senbon needles at Kakashi's book. A kunai materialized in his hand and skillfully redirected all the needles to the side, then looked up at the nin.

"Where you trying to get my attention?" The nin promptly facefaulted, then jumped back up, looking like they were about to try to throttle Kakashi, but instead took several deep breaths, and started again.

"Yes, I said thank you for weakening Zabuza-sam-, Zabuza-san for me. But still," Here the nin glanced at the four near-identical bodies piled up in the road. "There was nothing in his file that suggested he could make clones like that." Kakashi eye-smiled at the other mask wearer.

"That's because three of them are my students." Before the hunter-nin could figure out just what he meant, Kakashi Body Flickered beside them, formed four water clones from the nearby river, and had them pick up Team 7 and Tazuna.

"Well then, I'll be on my way. And I like the mask!" And Kakashi, along with his team and client, vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving a very confused Haku to try to figure out just what in hell had just happened.

**A/N: And there we are! I actually surprised myself with how quickly this happened, but then shrugged and went "Eh, who cares? It'll keep the fans happy anyway.". And now for something new, Why don't you tell me your ideas, and I'll try to write something for them? Only real limit is no pairings, because I can't write romance, and can be written as a one-shot. **

** Note: Not all suggestions will be written, because I actually have a life (sort of) and don't expect regular updates. 'Till next time, signing off!**


	3. A Veteran's RPG

** A/N: Well folks, here we have a new idea! 0_0 Surprised? Why? Surely you didn't expect all of these to be 'Real Copy-nins' did you? You did? Oh. Well, sorry. **

** Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Because if I did, the story would be very different and it might have stayed good. (Please don't flame me T_T)**

Kakashi frowned to himself as he stared at the gennin tied up to posts in front of him. _Why haven't they untied themselves yet?_ Brushing the thought out of his head, he sighed and pulled on a short section of rope sticking out of a knot, causing the entire rope to go slack, letting Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto out.

"Well, technically you passed." Team 7 looked up in shock. The one-eyes jounin had kicked the three of them all over the place, easily overpowering even their best coordinated attacks. "But personally, I think you should go back to the Academy." Naruto jumped to his feet and pointed accusingly at him.

"But you just said we passed!" Kakashi slapped Naruto's hand away.

"Yes, I did. But let me tell you something. Sakura, lets start with you." He paused to order his thoughts. "You have no strength, no taijutsu skills, no speed, no genjutsu skills, no ninjutsu skills, no stamina, all your tactics revolve around the Uchiha, and have been recorded as having constantly physically and verbally abused your teammate for no real reason." Sakura looked like she was about to break down and cry, while Sasuke nodded emphaticly. Kakashi bopped him on the head.

"Don't look so smug, you're next." Sasuke's expression turned slightly apprehensive. "You have good speed and precision...for a gennin. You're still slower than most chuunin applicants. Your stealth could also use more work, but your largest problems are mental." Sasuke was trying to decide if he was pleased, insulted, or just confused.

"You don't care about your teammates, you have no sense of loyalty, you're arrogant, pampered, overconfident, obsessed, and think you can solve all your problems by unlocking your Sharingan." Sasuke actually looked shocked. Was he really that bad? He was brought back to reality when Kakashi continued.

"Out of the three of you, Naruto is actually the best suited to become a shinobi of the Leaf. He is loyal, tried to work with both of you, has near jounin level stamina, kage level chakra reserves, and his stealth is good, even by my standards." Sakura and Sasuke looked at Naruto in shock, while Naruto himself was torn between beaming at Kakashi and gloating over Sasuke.

"But like them, you have major weaknesses. You have no tactical skills, no chakra control, no speed, no gen- or taijutsu skills, you try to tank your way through everything, and have the worst ninja uniform I've ever seen." He shot a contemplative look at Sakura. "But not by much."

A now deflated Naruto exchanged looks with Sakura and Sasuke. After hearing that assessment, they weren't so sure of their skills. Kakashi's visible eye gleamed.

"And so I'm accepting you three as my first team. Congratulations." He bit back a laugh at the look on their faces. Naruto was the first one to speak up.

"But-but-but I thought we failed! And then we all suck, so we pass?" He gripped his hair in his fists. "I'm so confused!" Kakashi smiled. It wasn't a happy smile, more of a grim smile.

"That's right. Anyone else would fail you three without a second thought. But I see this as a challenge. If I can take three utter failures and turn them into a force to be reckoned with, what can't I do?" He leaned up against one of the posts he had tied them to a few minutes ago and addressed Sasuke.

"Sasuke, you're going to be the stealth specialist, hitting enemies in the back before they can notice you." He turned to Sakura.

"You're going to be the distance genjutsu support for the team, and the one who will be patching them up afterwords. Should be easy to pick up with that control." And finally he turned to Naruto.

"You're going to be a tank, taking the shots that would take out you teammates and throwing them right back twice as hard." He gave each one of them a critical stare.

"Meet me at training ground twelve at 0800 hours tomorrow if you decide to remain as active shinobi under my command. Otherwise you have until noon tomorrow to turn in your headbands and decide if you want to take remedial training or quit altogether." And with that ultimatum, he vanished in a swirl of leaves. The potential Team 7 sat quietly for a while, then Naruto spoke up.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm not going to turn down a chance to get closer to my dream. I may be weak now, but Kakashi," he paused. "Kakashi-sensei already promised to make us strong." Clenching his fists, he walked out a few steps and turned to face the other two.

"Are you in?"

-End line break of Dante-

**A/N: So this is basically a more war veteran Kakashi teaching Team 7 to be a classic RPG party. Sasuke gets to be the rouge, Sakura is the mage, and Naruto becomes the warrior. Fun idea, no? And now for a special presentation, a 'Real Copy-nin' that didn't go very far.**

The Third, Saratobi Hiruzen, started to open the door to his office, then stopped. Where his desk had been yesterday, there was now three, and behind each one was a younger version of himself with a different hair color**, **hat and all. All three were grumbling to themselves and doing paperwork, reading and stamping at the same time.

He stood there in silence for a moment, then turned to leave. Closing the door quietly, he decided to take the rest of the day off. As he exited the tower, he paused and smirked vindictively as he heard three desperate voices calling out in unison:

"It's breeding! Multiplying! It must be!" _Heh, serves you three right for causing me so much trouble. _He continued walking. _And for making my chapter so short._

**A/N 2: Yay for fourth wall breaking Hokages! And now it's time for me to get some work done in real life. Hope you enjoyed!**


	4. Real Copy-nins, Part 3

**A/N: Sorry about the short chapters, but I'm getting ready to start college and don't have a lot of time to write. And because these aren't really supposed to be that long. So yeah. And now, we move on to bringing Kakashi closer to a nervous breakdown!**

Kakashi's eye was twitching, and he could lay the blame on nothing happening. Normally, his team was getting into some insanity or other, but so far today they had done everything he said, the moment he said it. And it was driving him crazy...

"Kakashi-sama, you seem to be rather tense. Is something the matter?" Kakashi whirled around, eye twitch upgrading into eye spasms, and _glared_ at the three gennin standing behind him, wearing soft blue and white kimonos, hair put into single buns on the back of their heads with a pair of senbon needles holding them in place, and jaw-length bangs framing their beatificly smiling faces.

"What are you up to? You're never this good! It's always crazy this and insanity that, trouble, headaches, and paperwork! I never know if you're going to be from Konoha or missing-nin from Kumo or Iwa! What are you planning!" He stopped his rant, partially because he was running out of breath and partly because of Team 7's reactions to it.

At his words, they had drooped and seemingly deflated until by the time he stopped, they were huddling in a corner surrounded by depression and despair.

"We've failed Kakashi-sama as his tools, we've become useless to him. Maybe we should just kill ourselves to relieve him of the burden we're causing him by living..." They trailed off, gloomily poking the ground in front of them. Kakashi froze, then hurriedly shoved down the tiny voice that screamed at him to let the kill themselves and get it over with. Sighing, he walked over and awkwardly patted two of their heads.

"Come on now, you're not really a burden, so stop talking about killing yourselves." Instantly, three pairs of watery, sparkling eyes were turned to him.

"Really, you mean it? We're not just broken tools to be thrown in a gutter for being useless? And causing problems?" Kakashi nodded and tried to get the image of Sasuke's puppy-dog eyes out of his head.

"No, you're not useless. Now if you want to keep being useful, go patrol the bridge and keep Tazuna alive." Team 7 jumped to their feet and snapped to attention.

"Hai, Kakashi-sama! We will prove that we are effective tools!" They then whipped out Mist hunter-nin masks, snapped them over their faces, and vanished at the same instant, leaving three small splashes of water behind. Kakashi sighed, then glanced around the room to see if anyone else was around before unsealing a jug of sake ("borrowed" from Tazuna's private stash) and gulping down almost half of it.

"I needed that."

-Line break of continued story-

Kakashi groaned as he cradled his head in his hands. Why oh why had he drank all that sake? Oh yeah, his team. Speaking of which, where were they? He froze, then slowly turned to the window. Daylight, morning to be precise. He turned even more slowly towards the clock on the wall. Nine o'clock. He had started drinking around three in the afternoon. _I've been out for eighteen hours! What have those little monsters done while I was out? _Starting to panic, he jumped to his feet and dashed out the door to the dining room where he was met with the sight of Team 7, still dressed the same way, sitting around the table sipping tea.

He sighed again, this time in relief, then froze up as he noticed the presence of a fourth occupant of room, who looked exactly the same as the other three, but with brown hair. And as if to confirm his worst fears, they all turned towards him at the exact same time.

"Ah. Kakashi-sama, you're awake! You really shouldn't drink like that you know." Kakashi's mouth opened and closed several times behind his mask, before finally squeezing out a horrified: "They're multiplying!" and fainted.

**A/N: So while Kakashi was passed out, Team 7, still as Haku, put Zabuza back into a near-death state and talked the real Haku into surrendering and pranking Kakashi.** **And can't you imagine Haku guilt-tripping Zabuza into acting nicer or shopping? XD**


	5. Grab Bag of Shorts

**A/N: I haven't had any good ideas, so here's a collection of shorter ones that I might expand at a later date. In today's que, we have an Omake for the Zabuza chapter, the Copy-nins begin their Gaara phase, and an idea for a pseudo-family, near overpowered Team 7 in more of a description/challenge format. Enjoy!**

Kakashi absently hummed to himself as he walked down the road toward Wave, happily absorbed in the well-worn pages of his beloved Icha-Icha. He let out a perverted giggle that was somewhat muffled by his mask as Tusande gave in to Jiyara, letting him...his danger sense kicked in and he yanked out a kunai and redirected a giant blade aimed at his book.

Falling back into a defensive position, he ran a quick assessment of his surroundings. Icha-Icha, check. Tazuna, check. Team 7, re-wrapping their swords, check. _Wait, three swords, I blocked one..._

Team 7 smirked somewhat maliciously under the bandages that covered their faces as both sides of Kakashi's book fell off, leaving him holding a spine and less than an inch on both sides. At that moment, people all across the Elemental Nations looked up as a heart-wrenching cry was heard throughout the land.

-**And now, Gaara begins-**

After returning from the C- turned A-rank mission to Wave, Team 7 fell into a regular pattern. In the morning, they would train and do a few D-ranks before breaking for lunch. When they were done eating, they would see how Zabuza and Haku were doing on their probationary period and visit Kakashi at his therapist, and then train some more until dinner.

This went on for about a week, then Kakashi had a brilliant idea. And so on a beautiful Tuesday morning, he called a team meeting at the North Bridge. And him waiting to arrive three and a half hours after he was supposed to wasn't any sort of revenge. Nope. Not one bit.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't to be immobilized by sand the instant his Body Flicker was complete. Next thing he knew, he was subjected to three black rimmed blank-eyed stares and near Biju level killing intent from his team, who were wearing black short-sleeved jumpsuits with leather straps running across their chests held up by a number of smaller straps that also seemed to be holding the large, gourd shaped containers that the sand was coming out of.

"If you don't have a good reason for being late, we'll kill you." Kakashi shivered as best he could at the rasping monotone they spake in, then squeaked as the sand began constricting around him. Hastily abandoning a half-formed excuse involving an old lady in a tree and a cat with groceries, he franticly racked his brain for something reasonable before remembering why he called the meeting.

"Chuunin exams!" The sand didn't let go, but it did stop tightening. "I was convincing the Hokage that you were ready to take them, and that took a while because you've only been on one mission above D-rank!" Actually, it had only taken him fifteen minutes to fill out the paperwork and inform the Hokage of his decision, but they didn't need to know that, right?

The stares and killing intent held for a few long seconds, then the sand released him and floated back into the gourds.

"That sounds reasonable." The killing intent, which had dropped to bearable levels, spiked briefly. "But if we find out that you lied, we'll feed your blood to Mother." And with that parting threat, Team 7 vanished in simultaneous swirls of sand. Kakashi shakily got to his feet from where he had fallen, and stared at the spot his team had just vacated.

"Why couldn't I get a normal team?" He violently shivered as a thought came to him. "Well, at least there's only three of them." At the gates, a red headed Suna shinobi with a strange tattoo on his forehead sneezed.

-**And now the more boring part**-

October 10th. The night the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked Konoha, relentlessly killing and destroying everything while shrugging off everything thrown at it. More than two thirds of Konoha's shinobi force were killed or crippled, and the civilian death toll was astronomical.

Finally the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, ended the battle by sealing it away, but gave his life to do so. While nobody knew exactly what happened, people assumed the Fourth sealed it inside himself and gave his life to kill it.

The Uchiha clan was nearly wiped out, having sent all of their members with active Sharingans to try to cast a genjutsu to stop or slow down the demon fox. Their clan head, Fugaku, fell to the beast while trying to save Hiashi, the Hyuuga clan head who also was killed.

While the Hyuuga were still strong, the Uchiha decided to go into hiding, staging a false massacre to allow the remaining members to leave in secret. It was several days later that the ANBU found a young Uchiha Sasuke hiding in a secret room underneath a shrine. With no way to contact the rest on the clan, he was placed in an orphanage with a blond haired boy and a pinkette civilian girl.

As time passed, the Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Haruno became fast friends. They were introduced to the shinobi world by an older orphan named Tenten, who passed on her love of all things bladed to Sakura and all things explosive to Naruto. Sasuke, being the most normal one of the group, decided to take up normal kenjutsu.

By the time they were nine, they were already considered to be gennin level by the various ninja who would teach them tricks and techniques from time to time. While they had never actually gone to Ninja Academy, the Hokage decided to let them take the exam on the condition that they attend if they failed. And this is where their story begins.

**A/N: I'm probably going to expand the Gaara section, likely have them meet, and I have a few ideas about the last idea. Also, I've got something brand new in the works, something to look forward to. Actually, why don't I leave you with a teaser?**

There have always been angels. There have always been demons. And there has always been a war. From time to time, an angel or a demon would have a child with a human, a child that would have the powers of their non-human parent, able to enter the splinter dimension of Limbo and fight the demons or angels there.

The most famous of these half-breeds was a Nephilim named Dante.

When Minato Namikaze described his wife Kushina Uzumaki as an angel, he was closer to the truth than he knew.

**A/N 2: This is actually the background for the snippet, and won't actually show up in the story. But yes, it's a Devil May Cry crossover. And seeing as I don't own a console, I only know the DMC: Devil May Cry world, which I have on my PC. Don't flame, and tell me what you want first!**


	6. Team 7 - Powered Up

**A/N: O.K.! I'm sorry it took so long, but the chapter is long! Add a blitz of paperwork and joining the beta for a game, and you have a long period of waiting. Hope this lives up to expectations!**

** This is the first part of the 'Powerful Team 7' idea from before. It doesn't show much background, but gives a good overview of the Team 7 for this series. I'll try to flesh out the world when I get around to writing the next one. Have fun! **

October 10th. The night the Kyuubi no Kitsune attacked Konoha, relentlessly killing and destroying everything while shrugging off everything thrown at it. More than two thirds of Konoha's shinobi force were killed or crippled, and the civilian death toll was astronomical.

Finally the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, ended the battle by sealing it away, but gave his life to do so. While nobody knew exactly what happened, people assumed the Fourth sealed it inside himself and gave his life to kill it.

The Uchiha clan was nearly wiped out, having sent all of their members with active Sharingans to try to cast a genjutsu to stop or slow down the demon fox. Their clan head, Fugaku, fell to the beast while trying to save Hiashi, the Hyuuga clan head who also was killed.

While the Hyuuga were still strong, the Uchiha decided to go into hiding, staging a false massacre to allow the remaining members to leave in secret. It was several days later that the ANBU found a young Uchiha Sasuke hiding in a secret room underneath a shrine. With no way to contact the rest on the clan, he was placed in an orphanage with a blond haired boy and a pinkette civilian girl.

As time passed, the Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Haruno became fast friends. They were introduced to the shinobi world by an older orphan named Tenten, who passed on her love of all things bladed to Sakura and all things explosive to Naruto. Sasuke, being the most normal one of the group, decided to take up normal kenjutsu.

By the time they were nine, they were already considered to be gennin level by the various ninja who would teach them tricks and techniques from time to time. While they had never actually gone to Ninja Academy, the Hokage decided to let them take the exam on the condition that they attend if they failed. And this is where their story begins.

-Yep, line break-

Iruka Umino pinched the bridge of his nose as he surveyed the excitedly chattering class in front of him.

"Alright class, listen up!" A grand total of two children stopped talking and looked at him. _Fine then, they leave me no choice._ Placing his hands in a ram seal, he activated his only original jutsu.

"SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN!" He gave himself a mental pat on the back as he glanced around at the now subdued children. _Big-Head jutsu,_ _success_. "We've got three new people joining us to take the gennin exam today." The noise levels of the room rocketed up as boys started shouting about how that wasn't fair and girls asking questions about who they were and what they were like.

"SHUT UP!" The room quieted again. "They are an experiment of the Hokage to see if the academy needs to alter our current curriculum." Que confused stares. "If they can pass, we need to teach more and better." The room was filled with quiet "Ohhhh"s. Iruka's assistant, Mizuka, rolled her eyes.

"Idiots." Iruka cuffed the back of her head gently.

"You don't need to them that. That's what the test's for." Ino Yamanaka, a self proclaimed gossip queen, raised her hand.

"Sensei, who are they and when are they getting here?" Mizuka spoke up.

"Hokage-sama hasn't told us much about them, just that they're all Kyuubi orphans who have pretty much trained themselves on tips from various shinobi on occasion." Exited whispers began flying across the room. Self trained? Were they strong or did they fail at life? The class quieted again as she continued.

"I don't know when they're getting here, but if they aren't here when we call them, they fail just like everybody else." Iruka stepped forwards, clipping several new papers onto his clipboard as he did so.

"If I call your name, respond and take a seat at your assigned desk. You'll be starting with the written portion of the exam." He handed a second clipboard to Mizuka. "If your name is on her list, you're starting with taijutsu and weapons." He began listing of familiar names until he reached a new one.

"Sakura Haruno." A nondescript brunette stood up from in the back and dropped her Henge, revealing a pink haired girl wearing a sleeveless red chinese dress with black biker shorts underneath, both a kunai and shruiken pouch on both legs half hidden by the dress, arms wrapped in bandages, and a broadsword that spread out into a battle-ax most of the way up before ending in a spear head on her back.

"Here, sensei!" There was complete silence. Sakura looked around. "What?" Iruka's mouth opened and closed several times before anything came out.

"H-Henge?" Sakura gave him a puzzled look.

"Yes, Henge. You do teach that, don't you?" Iruka flushed and looked away.

"Well, yes, but I didn't know, I mean I wasn't expecting, I mean...oh never mind." Shaking his head, he took a deep breath and recomposed himself. "Anyway, please take seat fourteen." The rest of the names on his list he knew, and after he was finished, he let Mizuka step forwards.

"Alright brats, roll call." Again, the list of familiar names went on until...

"Uchiha?!" Everyone gasped. Mizuka glared around the room. "What kind of joke is this, disrespecting the heroes of Konoha?" An unremarkable boy stood up from by a window and dropped his Henge, revealing black, slightly spiky hair, a dark blue shirt and black shin-length taped shinobi pants under an open fronted royal blue trench coat with silver trim, dark blue shinobi sandals, and a katana slung across his back.

"Here." Mizuka's glare focused onto him.

"What's your real name?" Sasuke glared back and activated his one-tomoe Sharingan.

"Sasuke Uchiha." The room was stunned. Mizuka and Iruka pulsed their chakra, but nothing changed as Sasuke walked over to join the other students by the doorway before deactivating his eyes. The room remained silent until Sakura spoke up from her desk.

"Pardon me, but when are we going to continue?" This snapped Mizuka out of her state of shock and she looked down at her clipboard, then promptly turned white to match her hair. In the silence of the room, her whispered words carried easily.

"Naruto Uzumaki." Everyone paled. Before Uzugakure was destroyed by an alliance between Kumo, Kusa, Iwa, and Mizu, the Uzumaki were feared throughout the Elemental Nations for three things: being masters of Fuinjutsu, massive reserves of 'dense' chakra, and their ability to be able to take on entire battalions of chuunin and jounin single handedly with the first two.

Another boy with no distinguishing features stood up and dropped his Henge, showing spiky blond hair streaked with crimson red, wearing tan ANBU armor under a gold sage coat with red flames on the bottom edge and a large storage seal with two smaller ones on either side printed on the back. Bandoliers filled with small scrolls crossed his chest and as he stood, Iruka and Mizuka noted the pair of tanto blades clipped to the small of his back under his coat.

"Here and ready!" Naruto grinned widely at the looks of shock surrounding him, then walked down to join Sasuke at the door. A now thoroughly shaken pair of teachers began preparing themselves to administer their tests.

-**Iruka POV**-

After handing out the tests and letting his students begin, Iruka kept shooting subtle glances at Sakura. Why would an Uchiha and an Uzumaki team up with her? His answer came eight minutes after he handed her the test.

"Sensei, I'm finished." Iruka, as well as the rest of the class, goggled at her. The test was supposed to take at least an hour! "But I don't know why you're testing us on such useless material." In slight shock, again, Iruka couldn't help but ask.

"What do you mean, 'useless material'?" Sakura picked up the test and began flipping through it.

"History, that's mostly useless in the field but you seem to emphasize it. Most of the math, nobody calculates the trajectory of kunai that way. Out-of-date information of the other nations, you can learn better stuff eavesdropping in the marketplace." She tossed the test into the air, then pinned it to the wall with several kunai. "It's more useful as a target than as a test of shinobi knowledge." Iruka recomposed himself, then handed her another test.

"Be that as it may, I can't change it now." Sakura snorted and filled out the test again, this time in six minutes.

"If that's all sensei, I'm going to join Sasuke and Naruto now." Iruka nodded absently, then turned back to the remaining students.

"Well, what are you sitting there for? Get back to work!" He turned back to his desk, wishing he had some pain reliever.

-**With Mizuka**-

"So for the weapons section, you get ten kunai and shruiken. You get points for speed, location, and tactics. If you use another weapon, tell me and I'll try to work it into the taijutsu portion. Maybe." Sasuke and Naruto stepped forwards.

"I am a student of the Uzumaki Whirling Tides style of kenjutsu." Sasuke indicated his katana, which upon closer inspection, had it's tsuba in the shape of an Uzumaki spiral.

"And I'm an apprentice of the Spiraling Steps style of kenjutsu." Naruto unsheathed his tantos with a flourish, showing a number of seals etched into the blades. Mizuka gave Naruto a confused look.

"Who are you apprenticing under?" Naruto shook his head.

"Nobody, it's part of the Uzumaki kenjutsu ranking system. It starts at learner, who aren't allowed to use real blades. Next is student, who are only allowed to use real blades in katas. Then comes apprentice, who are not allowed to use them in combat outside of spars. Next rank is adept, they're allowed to use weapons in one-on-one combat. Then comes expert, who are allowed to use blades whenever, and the final rank is master, and they are able to use nearly any weapon in any situation." Mizuka took a moment to process this, then nodded.

"So Uchiha-sama isn't allowed to use his sword in a spar, but you are." Naruto nodded then turned to an annoyed looking Sasuke with a massive grin on his face.

"Told you so, now pay up." Both Mizuka and the other students, who had been getting slightly bored, looked over at the two new arrivals as Sasuke begrudgingly handed over some cash. Finally, one student spoke up and asked what all of them were wondering.

"Um, Uchiha-sama, if I may ask, what did you bet on with Uzumaki-san, -sama?" Now Naruto handed back about half the cash with a put-out look on his face.

"I bet Sasuke that people would start calling him -sama once he told them his last name, and he bet me that they would start calling me that to." He sent a dry look towards the boy who had spoken. "Thanks for halving my winnings." In the middle of the boy's stuttering and stammering out apologies, Sakura stepped through the door.

"What's up?" Mizuka, glad for a normal problem to deal with, stormed up to Sakura.

"What are you doing out here? You're supposed to be taking the written test! How'd you even get out here without Iruka-ku, Iruka noticing?" Sakura tilted her head to the side.

"But I already finished the test. Twice, actually." Mizuka's face went from angry to deadpan.

"Sure you did. And when I bring you back, Iruka's going to let you join us for the physical test." Sakura nodded, and was then dragged back into the building by a ranting Mizuka by the back of her collar.

"If you're going to lie, at least lie well! Nobody's going to believe you finished a test that takes hours to do in fourteen minutes! What do they teach kids now anyway..." As the silver haired chuunin left hearing range, an awkward silence fell over the practice ground that lasted until a blank faced Mizuka and a smirking Sakura came back.

"Sakura Haruno will be joining us for the physical portion of the exam." Mizuka's voice was a near monotone as her mind desperately tried to process what she had just seen.

"Now for the weapons section, you get ten kunai and shruiken. You get points for speed, location, and tactics. If you use another weapon, tell me and I'll try to work it into the taijutsu portion. Maybe." A number of students gave her odd looks and Naruto chuckled.

"Congratulations Sakura, you just broke a chuunin." Sasuke gave a long-suffering sigh as Sakura looked at Naruto with sparkling eyes.

"Really?" Naruto nodded.

"Yep, she gave that little speech a little bit ago." Sakura started to bounce on her toes in happiness.

"Oh, just wait until Anko-sensei hears about this!" Her mention of Anko seemed to snap Mizuka out of her state of shock, and she glanced around the group of children before growling irritably at Sakura.

"And I guess you know how to use that whatever it is on your back?" Sakura crossed her arms and nodded firmly.

"That's right. I am a student of the Uzumaki Tidal Blows style of kenjutsu." Casting her mind back, Mizuka checked what Naruto had told her earlier.

"Student, so that means you're only allowed to use that thing for katas?" Sakura gave a single nod of her head, then Mizuka walked over to the throwing line. "O.K., throwing time." She began calling names, and soon enough it was time for "Haruno, Sakura."

Grinning almost disturbingly, she ignored the kunai that the gennin scorekeeper/assistant tried to hand her and pulled out her own. Holding three between the extended fingers of both hands, she launched them at the targets, then threw the remaining four kunai at the ones still in the air, changing their courses.

Nine kunai buried themselves in head, throat, and heart areas while the tenth was buried halfway up it's handle in the groin of the center dummy. Ten shruiken struck arteries and nerve clusters quickly afterward. Dead silence and pale faces were joined by everyone covering their crotches. Sakura just smiled.

"Is that good enough sensei?" Mizuka, who had only shivered at the display, nodded and motioned for Sakura to retrieve her weapons. She did so, and the test continued.

"Uchiha, Sasuke." Everyone looked eager to see how an Uchiha would perform. Sasuke rolled his eyes at the display, then surprised people by starting with the shruiken. They quickly found places in the targets elbows, knees, and eyes of the targets and were followed by kunai to the mouth, heart, and liver areas of the dummies. At Mizuka's look, silently asking why he broke convention by starting with shruiken, he elaborated.

"If used right, shruiken are harder to deflect or dodge, so I use them to weaken an enemy before finishing them off with kunai." A few of the civilian students shivered at the careless way he spoke of killing, while most of the girls began to look at him with admiration. Naruto leaned over and whispered in his ear as he returned.

"Looks like you've got a fan club in the making." Sasuke groaned. Naruto grinned and practically bounced to the line for his turn. Completely ignoring the provided weapons, he whipped out a scroll from his bandolier and in a puff of smoke ten kunai and shruiken flew up into the air.

Before they could fall, Naruto began grabbing and throwing them in rapid succession. In the space of seven seconds, all twenty projectiles had embedded themselves in the targets. A heartbeat later, they exploded in bursts of nearly invisible wind blades that shredded the dummies.

Everyone tore their eyes from the scattered chunks on the ground to face Naruto, who began to sheepishly rub the back of his head.

"Sorry, I forgot I put seals on those. They were normal yesterday, I swear!" Everyone kept staring, then Sakura smacked him on the back of the head, knocking him to the ground.

"Stop trying to look cool! There's no way you would have forgotten something about seals and you know it!" Naruto jumped back up in a huff and brushed himself off.

"Fine then, ruin all my fun. But you still saw where they hit, right?" Sakura rolled her eyes, but nodded.

"Lethal kunai strikes: three heart, three forehead and eye, two throat. Non-lethal kunai strikes: one rib and one intestine." She paused to take a breath. "Lethal shruiken strikes: two subclavian artery, three jugular. Debilitating shruiken strikes: three kneecaps. Other: one bicep and one calf." Everyone except Naruto and Sasuke were staring awestruck at Sakura. She had gotten all that from a glance? Naruto groaned.

"I'm going to be spending time with Tenten, aren't I" Sasuke and Sakura nodded with smiles on their faces as they answered in synch and entirely to cheerfully.

"Yep!" Naruto groaned again and turned to Mizuka with a pleading look.

"Can we just get to the next part of the exam?" Mizuka, starting to get used to the strangeness surrounding the three, just nodded her head.

"Alright everybody, since Uzumaki-san is the last person on my list, we're done here. Now get your butts over to sparring ring eight!" Once they had arrived, Mizuka turned to face them with a bit of a sadistic smirk.

"This is my favourite part, taijutsu! You have to land five hits on me or stop me from getting five hits on you. We have a fifteen minute time limit, so do your best!" Glancing around the somewhat intimidated faces in front of her, she chuckled.

"Also, even if you don't get one of the challenges, if you prove you have a good grasp of the basic stuff, you pass." Things went as expected, with a few students managing to land a few hits or dodge for the required time. When "Haruno, Sakura" was called, the children began looking on with anticipation. With a small smile, she bowed to Mizuka.

"May we have a good match." Mizuka stared at her, the rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, that's really not necessary." As Sakura continued to look at her expectantly, she sighed (_how many times have I done that today?_) and reluctantly bowed shallowly back. "Yeah, fine. Good match."

Sakura made the first move, launching a series of punches and kicks that Mizuka simply stepped around. Letting Sakura land a hit, she discovered that while Sakura did hit surprisingly hard, it was still only low chuunin. Spotting a hole in her defenses, Mizuka began to counter-attack.

Surprisingly, Sakura managed to avoid getting hit once and managed to get in another two hits, only one of which Mizuka let her have. After the timer went off, Sakura was only breathing slightly heavier then when she started. Mizuka clapped her on the shoulder, honestly curious about some of the moves she had pulled off to avoid getting hit.

"That was pretty good. How'd you learn to move like that?" Sakura shivered and spoke in a whisper.

"Tenten and the Scrolls of Doom." Naruto and Sasuke started shaking as she spoke as well.

"Scrolls of doom?" Mizuka prodded. Sakura collapsed and Sasuke and Naruto appeared beside her, pulling her into a group hug as all three started rocking back and forth on the ground, dark whispers drifting back up to her.

"Not scrolls of doom, Scrolls of Doom. Major Doom. Capital Doom. Those horrible things, the endless weapons, the maniacal laughter..." The three trailed off into indistinguishable mutters and broken laughter. Mizuka sweatdropped, then jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the next student.

"Well that's great and all, but you're sitting in the way of this chump." All three seemed to teleport to their feet with bright smiles on their faces.

"O.K. Mizuka-sensei! It's all good now." Mizuka rolled her eyes, but stepped to the side to let them past and continued testing. After a while, too long to the waiting boys, it was finally time for "Uchiha, Sasuke.". He jumped straight into the ring and took up the first stance of the Uchiha Interceptor Fist. Mizuka smiled, looking a little feral, and took up a more advanced defensive stance.

After almost thirty seconds of nothing, she decided to go ahead and make the first move. She started off with a simple chain of kicks, wanting to see how Uchiha-sama would deal with a opponent who stayed out of his striking range. He easily avoided all of her kicks, and tapped her knee as she pulled her leg back.

"First strike." Mizuka's smile grew a tiny bit and she sped up slightly. _Injure the leg, forcing __them to stop using kicks. Not bad._ Again Sasuke kept up, and pressed the side of her foot, twisting her ankle slightly.

"Second strike." Mizuka's smile spread further, and she started chaining punches in with her kicks. This time, it took Sasuke a good minute to catch an arm and press the elbow.

"Third strike." Mizuka just sped up again to just below chuunin speed, with a real smile on her face. Finally, someone normal who understood the importance of taijutsu! Now Sasuke was having a bit of trouble keeping up, blocking occasionally instead of dodging everything. After a full five minutes of standstill, he suddenly sped up, catching Mizuka off-guard and rapidly tapping her larynx and a nerve cluster under her jaw.

"Fourth and fifth strikes, lethal and knockout finish." All of the students, and Mizuka to a lesser degree, were gaping at his display of skill, then started clapping. Naruto clapped him on the shoulder as he headed to the ring for his turn.

"Yep, definitely a fan club." Sasuke glared at him, receiving a cheery grin in return.

"I would so kick your ass if you weren't about to fight." Naruto chuckled.

"Keep dreaming, sunshine." Sasuke shoved Naruto's hand off his shoulder, then grinned at him.

"Show her why you are temporarily better than me at this one thing." Naruto snorted and let out a short laugh.

"More like always better than you at most things, but don't worry." His smile turned savage. "I intend to." Mizuka suddenly found herself wondering just what she was going up against. Deciding to err on the side of caution, she took up an advanced defensive stance. Before they could begin, Naruto raised his hand.

Mizuka-sensei, am I allowed to use my weapons?" Remembering the seals that covered the tanto blades, she decided not to risk it.

"I'd rather stick to plain taijutsu. I don't want to go against seals that I have no idea what they do, and I don't think you want to bother explaining what they do. Naruto's face got a delighted expression, but as he opened his mouth, Sasuke and Sakura shouted over him.

"No he doesn't!" Both Mizuka and Naruto turned to look at them, her with a curious look and him with a betrayed expression. Sakura continued at the unspoken question of "Why?".

"Once he gets started, he never shuts up. He'll literally talk about his seals all day and still have said nothing you understand." Naruto began pouting at being denied his chance to tell others about the wonders of fuinjutsu, and Mizuka felt oddly relieved. Turning back to face each other, Mizuka fell back into her defensive stance while Naruto settled into a strange stance she had never seen before.

He was right in Mizuka's face the moment the call to begin was sounded, seemingly floating in the air as he launched attack after attack that kept him above her. Rolling suddenly out from underneath him, she immediately had to jump away from a seal that wrote itself in glowing blue chakra underneath her feet. A tap on the back of her shoulder made her drop her chuunin vest and dodge the stray tendrils of lightning spraying out from the shock tag Naruto had managed to plan on her.

Glancing up in shock, no pun intended, from where she was almost electrocuted, she was met with a sandal to the face that knocked her backwards and that was swiftly followed by a hail of fists and feet that kept her on the defensive. Dropping low to the ground, she grabbed his ankle and slammed him to the ground. He back to his feet with a handspring that put some distance between them, then as she charged whispered one word.

"Boom." Half the ring went up in flames, silhouetting Naruto in black showing only his eyes glinting in the flames and a swirl of vibrant blue chakra surrounding him as he stood with a crazed-looking smile on his face. A stunned Mizuka fell down amid a shower of dirt, landing in front of him. He crouched down, still grinning, and poked her four times in the neck and ribs.

"Five hits before fifteen minutes are up." The now slightly traumatized gennin scorekeeper glanced at the timer, then spoke up in a trembling and awed voice.

"Winner, Naruto Uzumaki-sama. Time, thirty-seven seconds." Naruto, disturbing grin gone, hopped out of the wreckage and strolled over to a smiling Sakura and a facepalming Sasuke.

"What's wrong Sasuke, think I went overboard or something?" Sasuke rolled his eyes again while Sakura lightly bopped him on the head and giggled.

"Yes! You didn't really need to blow Mizuka-sensei up that hard!" Naruto shook his head with a look of total conviction.

"Yes I did, she's a chuunin, so I used chuunin level seals on her." He glanced back over his shoulder at Mizuka. "See? She's already getting back up." And so she was. After standing still for several seconds, she half walked, half staggered over to lean against the doorway.

"O.K., Uzumarki seems to have given me a concussion, so don't kill each oter until 'Ruka gets back, then go take the paperr test." The students cheered loudly at their temporary freedom, completely ignoring how Mizuka was slurring, and proceded to swarm the three new examinees, peppering them with questions.

A second later, they were shoved back by a translucent blue dome that flashed into existence round the hassled trio and stayed up for the next six minutes until Iruka brought his portion of students out to trade places. The moment he caught sight of Mizuka's unsteady stance, he rushed over to her.

"Mizuka! Are you hurt? What happened?" He noticed the destroyed sparring ring and gasped, than jumped to an assumption based on what little he knew.

"You were attacked by an insane megalomaniac with a god complex who had the eyes of the Sag of Six Paths trying to bring peace through war while he was trying to find biju!" Even in her addled state, Mizuka could still smack him in the face with enough force to knock him down.

"No you idiot! That's got to be the most stupid thing I've ever heard!" A wave of dizziness struck her, and she collapsed back against the wall. "No, Uzumalki got me with a 'splosion that knocked me 'round a bit. Got ter go to the hospital." She paused as she started walking out the gate. "And he uses chakra seals." And with that final shot, she vanished around the corner. Iruka sighed as he resigned himself to watching his students until the replacement chuunin could arrive, then stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed the clearly visible barrier swirling around the three new arrivals.

He pinched his nose just above his scar, trying to ward off the rapidly approaching headache. Shoving his way over to the dome, he cleared his throat loudly to get their attention. The three looked up in relief as they saw him and Naruto took his hands off the ground, letting the seal created with nothing but pure chakra fade into oblivion.

Iruka saw this and immediately knew he was dealing with a real Uzumaki. Nobody else could create chakra seals at such a young age or without extensive training.

"Iruka-sensei! You're finally here!" He glanced at the ground where a faint charred area showed where the barrier seal was. "Sorry about that, just trying to not get mobbed." Iruka couldn't help but chuckle and nod. Sasuke glanced around as he brushed his coat off.

"Where's Mizuka-sensei? She wasn't actually hurt, was she?" Iruka shook his head.

"No, all she had was a mild concussion. She just went to the hospital to make sure." Naruto turned and pointed triumphantly at Sakura.

"Ha! Told you I didn't go overboard!" Sakura crossed her arms and pouted as she looked to the side.

"Hmph, I still think you did." Sasuke stepped between them before they could go any further.

"Alright, break it up ladies." He was instantly subjected to two harsh glares that slowly morphed into identical looks of mischief. With only a single glance at each other, both Naruto and Sakura latched onto his arms and stared up at him with stars in their eyes.

"Oh Sasuke-kun, you do care!" Sasuke sweatdropped and looked away from them to Iruka to see a matching sweatdrop on his head as well.

"See what I have to put up with?" Iruka put his hand on Sasuke's shoulder sympatheticly.

"Keep it up so we don't have to deal with them ourselves." Sasuke's sweatdrop doubled in size. A moment later a blue haired man wearing a chuunin vest dropped down beside Iruka.

"Iruka Umino?" At his nod the new chuunin continued. "I'm Daiki Isamu, filling in for chuunin instructor Mizuka Takahashi. I assume I'll be handling the physical portion?" He then noticed the destroyed ring. "What happened here?" Everyone pointed to Naruto, who let go of Sasuke's arm.

"It was an accident! Sort of. I was only trying to blow up Mizuka-sensei, not the ring too!" Daiki just looked at Iruka and pointed. Sighing again, Iruka answered.

"Uzumaki." Daiki paled, glanced back and forth between the hole in the ground and Naruto several times, then leaned toward Iruka and whispered.

"Are you sure?" Iruka whispered two words back.

"Chakra seals." Daiki shivered, then smiled.

"Well, he's your problem now, good luck!" Iruka smacked his forehead, winced as his palm met metal, and turned to face the children.

"Alright, everyone who just finished out here follow me!" The children moaned at the end of their free time but they still followed Iruka into the building and took their seats. After handing out the tests, Iruka went back to his desk and started grading the previous group's tests. Ten minutes later, Naruto and Sasuke both raised their hands.

"Sensei, we're done!" Iruka stared in disbelief, his brain trying to wrap itself around the fact that not one but three people had completed a test that was supposed to take at least an hour in less than fifteen minutes.

Taking the the tests, he quickly flipped through them, finding that both were finished and they were different enough that they hadn't copied off of each other. Despite his suspicions, he had no choice but to let them go sit with Sakura in an empty classroom to wait for everyone else to finish.

Upon spotting Naruto and Sasuke walk into the room, Sakura hopped down from the wall she was standing on and handed Naruto a sheet of paper with a chain of seals running around the edges.

"You two so owe me for making me take that stupid test again." The other two nodded, then Sasuke handed Naruto another sheet of paper identical to the one Sakura had and walked up the wall to join Sakura. Naruto rolled the two sheets of paper up, adding his own sheet before putting all three into a small container which he clipped back onto his bandolier before joining the other two.

-Time Skip-

After about an hour, the rest of the students started coming back in to find Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto in a three-way slow motion spar. When they noticed that they were being watched, they stopped and sat down together near a window. When everyone was in the room, Daiki went into the room across the hall leaving Iruka to explain the last part of the exam.

"When we call your name, you will go into that room where we will administer the final portion of the test." Picking up a new clipboard, he started with "Aburame, Shino." Naruto let his head fall onto the desk and Sasuke slumped slightly.

"Why do we always have to go last?" Sakura rolled her eyes.

"If you don't like it, change your names." Sasuke snorted and Naruto pouted.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have to wait forever to do anything!" Sakura snickered at Naruto's face before replying with a smirk.

"I'm just that awesome." Sasuke shot her a smirk of his own.

"More like you were so boring compared to a fuinjutsu specialist and an Uchiha that a kami decided to let you go first." Sakura smacked the back of his head, and the lighthearted banter continued until Sakura was called into the room.

Entering, she glanced around, then dispelled the illusion that made Iruka and Daiki appear to be on the right side of the room instead of the left. Looking at them, she crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow archly.

"And just what was the point of that?" Iruka scribbled something down on his clipboard before answering.

"To see if you could detect and dispel genjutsu, what else?" Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Make it less obvious, would you? You two weren't even trying to suppress your chakra." This caught Daiki's attention.

"You're a sensor? That's rare, and it's usually chuunin who develop that talent." Sakura nodded, looking pleased with herself.

"Yes, I know. I may not be the best there is, but I'm still better than the average chuunin at sensing chakra." Iruka flipped a page, wrote something else down, and turned back to the front.

"O.K., now for the ninjutsu part, please do the Kawarimi and for genjutsu do the Henge and Bunshin." His head shot up as Sakura's jaw hit the floor.

"What? That's it?" Iruka nodded, confused. "That's it? No offensive or defensive ninjutsu, no combat genjutsu? Not even a Hell Viewing Technique? What kind of test is this?!" Daiki joined in on Iruka's confusion.

"Why would you know anything else? We teach the basics, everything else is taught by your jounin sensei." Sakura gaped a moment longer, then threw her hands in the air before flipping through several handseals.

A moment later, she vanished in a puff of smoke, a chair taking her place. Another puff later, and she was back, plus six copies of herself.

"Satisfied?" Daiki nodded and Iruka kept writing. "Good." She huffed, then all seven Sakuras flickered out of existence. Looking around, Iruka noticed an extra bench he seemed to have trouble focusing on. A moment later, it turned into the real Sakura, surprising both chuunin. Daiki spoke up first.

"What was that?" Sakura shrugged, glancing disinterestedly at her fingernails.

"Simultaneous Kawarimi and Henge, the smoke letting me cast an illusion that made me less noticeable. Then Bunshin, which you saw." She dubbed her nails on her sleeve and went back to admiring them. "Nothing hard."

Both chuunin were shocked. Simultaneous Kawarimi and Henge? How did you pull that off? And then casting a C-rank minimum genjutsu unnoticed by either of them? That was near jounin level! Both were snapped back to reality by Sakura waving her hand in front of their faces.

"Heloooo in there! Anybody home?" Iruka shook himself and glanced to the side in embarrassment while Daiki scowled to show his irritation at falling for the trap.

"Yeah yeah, get out of my face." Sakura ignored him and turned to Iruka.

"So, did I pass?" He nodded, and handed her a hitai-ate.

"This is a sign that Konoha officially recognizes you as an acting member of the shinobi corps. You can wear the plate anywhere as long as it's clearly visible. Congratulations on passing, gennin Haruno." Sakura took the band, and gave Iruka an odd look.

"Did you write that speech? Because you sound really stiff when you say it." Iruka was instantly in the corner with a raincloud over his head.

"I told them it was going to sound stupid, but did they listen? Oh, no, of course not. 'Just read it' they say. 'It'll be fine' they say. But does it? Of course not." A large sweatdrop began sliding down the back of the other two's heads, and with several nervous glances at Iruka, Sakura backed out of the room to wait for the rest of her friends.

-Sasuke's turn-

Sasuke entered the room, rolled his eyes, and activated his Sharingan for a moment to cast a quick genjutsu of his own. To Iruka and Daiki's point of view, Sasuke walked into the room before he was run over by a man wearing a black cloak with red clouds on it and wearing an orange spiral mask who proceeded to grab the container of haiti-ais, strike a pose, and shouted.

"Tobi has accomplished his mission! Now Leader-sama will tell everyone that Tobi is a good boy!" The apparent madman laughed evilly, but somehow sounding comical rather than frightening. Iruka jumped to his feet and dashed after the cloak that whipped around the corner and ran face first into the still closed door.

Daiki, who had realized that what had just happened was too ridiculous to be real, just stayed seated while laughing at him. Iruka sat up, rubbing his nose and glaring at Daiki, who made no movement to help him, and then marched back to his desk wearing his wounded pride like a cloak of his own.

"Sasuke Uchiha passes genjutsu." Sasuke smiled and casually leaned up against a wall.

"So what do I need to do for ninjutsu?" Daiki finally stopped laughing and explained. Sasuke gave them a completely blank stare that stretched on uncomfortably long, then started banging his head against the wall he was leaning against.

"I" bang "can't" bang "believe" bang "it's" bang "that" bang "stupid!" bang. Turning his attention away from trying to break the wall without chakra using his head, he rapidly Henge'd into Iruka and switched places with him.

Iruka fell onto the floor as he found himself sitting on air on the other side of the room. Daiki started cracking up again and Iruka found out what his face looked like with a superior smirk on it. He stood up, and promptly fell down again, this time into his chair as Sasuke switched places again and dropped the Henge while creating several bunshin. As Iruka inwardly seethed at his disgrace, Daiki calmed down enough to toss Sasuke a haiti-ai.

"Here you go. Do whatever you want with it as long as the plate is obvious. And good guess on the Henge and Bunshin, those were supposed to be part of the genjutsu test." Sasuke smirked as he walked out the door.

"Of course, I'm the best there is." Daiki chuckled and walked across the room to the waiting room door.

"Uzumaki-san, it's your turn!" Naruto gave a quick fistpump as he stood up, while Iruka scrambled to put up the genjutsu. He finished just as Naruto entered the room, hiding him and the his desk from sight. Naruto took one look around, then turned towards Daiki and raised one eyebrow.

"Did you do that to everybody or do you just think I'm that bad at genjutsu?" He pulsed his chakra, dispelling the illusion to reveal an upset Iruka glaring at Daiki.

"I'm sorry Uzumaki-san, it would be better but Isamu here decided to call you before I could set it up properly." Daiki just grinned unrepentantly at Iruka.

"Live life fully, that's my motto and pulling a fast one on a coworker is part of that." Naruto cleared his throat, stopping the fight before it could kick off, then henge'd into Inoichi Yamanaka, kawarimi'd with a desk, and formed five rows of ten clones who saluted before he dropped his henge.

"Good enough?" Both chuunin's jaws broke the floorboards as they rocked down. "What?" Iruka jerkily raised his arm to point at him.

"H-how?" Naruto shrugged carelessly.

"Eh, just stuck a sound transfer seal on Sasuke before you called him." Daiki gave him an approving look while Iruka facepalmed.

"I have half a mind to fail you now, but it's my fault for not noticing. So fine, you pass." He threw the headband at Naruto before pointing to the door. "Make sure people can see the plate. Now get out." Naruto rolled his eyes as he walked out, the door closing on the tail end of a comment from Daiki to Iruka he didn't quite catch.

Spotting Sasuke chatting with Sakura, who was on a rope swing, he headed over to the gate.

"I'm done!" Sasuke smiled while continuing to lean against the tall plank fence and Sakura hopped off the swing to greet him.

"Hey! Did you have any trouble?" Naruto shook his head.

"Of course not. It was way too easy to fail, especially for someone as awesome as me." He finished with a confidant look on his face. Sasuke snorted and Sakura just laughed and slapped his back.

"We have to come back tomorrow for team assignments, but for now let's get something to eat! Sasuke's paying!" Both laughed at Sasuke's expression. "Kidding, kidding. We'll split it three ways same as usual."

Sasuke relented and joined in their laughter, and the three friends, family in all but blood, walked off into the sunset to celebrate the beginning of their ninja careers.

**A/N: And so here you go. It's a bit unpolished, but it introduces my Team 7 and their basic abilities and skill levels. Daiki Isamu is an OC, created when I needed to replace Mizuka (I really don't know when Mizuki became a girl). His name is translated as "Daiki – large radiance, Isamu – courage, bravery". So something along the lines of "radiates large amounts of courage". **

** OC: Name - Daiki Isamu**

** Rank - Chuunin**

** Affinity – Fire**

** Focus – Katon jutsu, throwing weapons.**

** Personality – Carefree, somewhat hot-headed, but can focus when needed.**

** Motto - "Live life to the fullest!"**


End file.
